Lamp finishing head



April 7, 1959 R. M. GARDNER EI'AL LAMP FINISHING HEAD Filed June 16, 1955 Fig. 2

INVENTORJ. ROLAND M GARDIVLR ALBERT E. PKEJTON ERNEST E. YEO

Arumv-ay,

United States Patent LAMP FINISHING .HEAD

Roland .M. Gardner, Swampscott, Ernest E. Yeo, Wenrham, and Albert E. Preston, Beverly, Mass., assignors to Sylvania Electric Products Inc., Salem, Mass., a corporation of Massachusetts Application June 16, 1955, Serial No. 515,882 1 Claim. (Cl. .2925.19)

Our invention relates to lamp-making machinery and m particularto a novel lamp supporting head or carriage useful in supporting a lamp while it travels from one operating stationto another.

Lamps are customarily made in very large numbers on complex automatic machines, a factwhich, as in all mass production, introduces great diflicul-ty in the efiicient production .of different sizes and shapes, .since it ,is usually expensive and tedious to change an .automatic machine to operate on a range of sizes. In lamp making the final operations normally comprise positioning a base on the bulb, after the mount is sealed to the latter, threading a top wire through the base, cementing the base in place, cutting, soldering the .top wire to the eyelet of the base and .the side Wire to .the .base shell. These operations may conveniently be carried out by a succession of instrumentalities stationed along the path of a step-by-step conveyor. Hitherto the lamp-carrying head of the conveyor needed individual and careful adjustment each time the size of the lamp being run was changed.

The most important object of the present invention is to improve the economy and efficiency with which lamps may be produced.

Another object of the invention is to provide lampcarrying heads automatically self-adapting to various sizes of lamps.

An important feature of the invention resides in a lamp-carrying head having a stem equipped at the top with a lamp-engaging stop and with a sliding carriage adapted to support a lamp and coupled to the stern through a one-way clutch adapted to be driven through one or more spring-loaded linkages arranged to push the carriage upwardly from a starting position until the top of the lamp is seated properly within a lamp base.

These and other objects and features of the invention will be more readily understood and appreciated from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof selected for purposes of illustration and shown in the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 is a view in side elevation through a lampcarrying head constructed in accordance with the invention, the carriage thereof being shown in sections, and

Fig. 2 is a view in cross-section along the line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

As will be evident from the drawing the lamp-carrying head of our invention is organized about an elongated steel stem having a flattened surface and carrying adjacent its upper end a mounting bracket 12 by means of which the stem and its assembled elements may be bolted to an appropriate projection of a conveyor indicated by broken lines at 14. As the conveyor operates the stem is carried from one station to another so that the operations may be performed in their customary sequence.

Secured to the upper end of the stem 10 is a pair of cooperating jaws 16 arranged to embrace a lamp base and to hold it in desired position. The jaws 16 are arranged to be opened and closed by cam operated mechanism (not shown), when the base is loaded into the ice machine. of the invention except insofar as they support the base into which the tipped lamp is inserted.) Above the jaw 16 and connected to the stem 10 is an apertured plate 18 dimensioned to engage the crown or tip of a lamp base and to steady it while it is being threaded and cemented to the lamp. In order to provide for lateral adjustment of the jaws 16, so that they will come into proper relationship with necks of varying diameter, a

simple set screw 20 is provided on each jaw to limit the closing stroke thereof.

A lamp 22 is shown in position with its base engaged by the jaws 16 and embraced by the apertured plate 18. Supporting the bottom of the inverted bulb are three'outwardly diverging fingers 24 secured on the upper end of a rod 26 which is in turn supported by a block or carriage 28 having a vertical bore receiving the stem 10, the carriage 28 thus being slidable up and down on the stem. The inner end of the carriage 28 is bifurcated and receives a block 35 having an undercut recess 30 in which is mounted a roller 32 urged upwardly by means of a spring 34 seated in the block 35. The combination of the spring 34 and the inclined surface of the undercut recess 30 operates to jam the roller 32 upwardly into wedging engagement with the flat surface of the stem 10. If a lifting force is exerted on the bottom of the carriage 28, the roller retreats downwardly in the recess 30 and permits the carriage to slide easily on the stem; but if a downward force is exerted on the carriage, the roller wedges more tightly in the recess and effectively locks the carriage against the stem. In effect, the roller, spring, and recess function as a one-Way clutch providing free movement of the carriage on the stem in one direction by preventing movement thereof in the opposite direction. To release the roller from locking engagement with the stem 10 I provide a cam lever 36 pivotally mounted in the carriage above the roller 32 and having its end projecting outwardly beyond the carriage. As the head moves along the conveyor, the cam lever 36 will encounter a movable track mounted on the frame of the machine at a time and place when it is desired to drop the carriage on the stem to release a lamp.

The arrangement of the machine is such that a lamp base is first positioned between the jaws 16 and the apertured plate 18. The head is then indexed to a station at which transfer mechanism associated with another machine presents a lamp upside down to the base and causes the lamp seal to enter the base until it reaches a position approximately A5" below the final seating. Means are then employed to lift the carriage 28 until the fingers 24 come in contact with the bulb of the lamp 22, contact between the fingers 24 and the bulb occurring before the lamp has reached the end of its upward stroke and before the lamp is released by the transfer mechanism.

It should be noted that the position of the lamp shown in Fig. l is not in its initial position on the carriage but represents action upon the lamp at a subsequent station of the basing machine. At that subsequent station there is provided a lever 38 pivoted to the frame of the machine as suggested at 40 and positioned to underlie the bottom of the carriage 28. To operate the lever 38 there is provided a crank 42 pivotally connected to a link 44 also pivoted to the machine frame as suggested at 45 and having a cam follower 46 disclosed adjacent a cam 48 fixed to a shaft 49 journalled in the frame of the machine and driven by conventional means (not shown). Connected to the link 44 is the lower end of a tension spring 50 connected at its upper end to any convenient part of the machine frame and operating to urge the cam follower toward the surface of the cam 48.

The lamp base is heated in order to soften the theme! (The jaws and their operation form no part plastic cement contained in it and thus condition it for final seating of the lamp in the base. To carry this out the cam 48 is arranged to operate the lever 38 to nudge the carriage 28 upwardly approximately 4:" to bring the upper portion of the reversed bulb into final seating engagement with the lamp base. The upward travel of the carriage 28 continues until such time as the lamp has reached its final seating position in the base and therefore encounters resistance to further upward travel. The strength of the spring 50 is so determined that the pressure of the lamp into the base overcomes the spring, the cam follower 46 leaves the surface of the cam 48, and the link 44, crank 42, and lever 38 come to rest.

It will be seen that the length of travel of the carriage 28 upwardly along the stem is determined by the height of the lamp delivered to the fingers 24, being greater for a short lamp and shorter for a longer lamp. In other words, the head of our invention not only automatically accommodates lamps of different sizes but permits a change in the lever at which the lamp is carried, also without regard to the dimensions of the lamp.

After the lamp has been finished, the head is conveyed to a station at which a cammed surface encounters the cam lever 36 to release the clutch and permit the carriage to drop, then the finished lamp is supported by jaws 16 which are later opened to permit conventional instrumentalities to transport the lamp into a packing machine or other delivery apparatus.

It has been found in practice that the utilization of lamp-carrying heads of the type herein described has very greatly reduced the time required to change over a complete automatic lamp-making system from one size to another and thus effects valuable economies in lamp manufacture.

Having now described and illustrated a preferred embodiment of the invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States 1s:

A support, a lamp carrying head carried by said support and comprising an elongated stem, a lamp base holder fixed to an end of said stem, a lamp supporting carriage slidably mounted on said stem, a one-way clutch coupling said carriage to said stem to permit free movement of said carriage toward said base holder, means for releasing said clutch to allow the carriage to be moved in an opposite direction, means on the support for moving said carriage toward said lamp base holder comprising a lever engaging the carriage, a spring fixed at one end and operatively connected at its free end with said lever to press the same against the carriage, a second lever connected to the free end of the spring, said lever having a cam follower, and a cam opposite the lever having a contour such that it engages the second lever to stretch the spring for a portion of cam revolution, to allow the carriage to be shifted away from the base holder free of spring influence, and to becomewholly separated from the cam follower to allow the carriage to be urged toward the base holder solely under influence of the spring.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

